What Is Sentencing Disparity

Women convicted of “other property offenses” – a category of crimes that includes arson, receiving stolen property and breaking and entering — received shorter prison sentences. • Black female defendants were, in some ways, treated differently than white female defendants. Black women were assigned higher bond amounts and were more likely to be sent to prison than white women. Women of both races were equally likely to be released prior to

The sentencing can be more lenient if you are white because of bias and

He claims the prejudices of the judicial system handed out mandatory sentencing for those who used their constitutional right to have a trial by jury. The author builds a relationship with the audience by using Pathos in order to compel them to recognize the urgency to change the current law. Girault explains the failing logic of the law on page 225, he states that communities were to be made safer and instead of targeting petty crimes the focus would be to bring down kingpins, however after three decades of the SRA it still was a failure. Girault defines the sentencing reform act as discriminatory and states that minorities are hugely effected by this law and states ”Black people are overwhelming charged, convicted and sentenced at a higher rate to federal crimes since the passage of the Sentencing Reform Act.” (Girault 228).

When a judge is considering sentencing to convict an offender specific deterrence should be more valuable than general deterrence but both are needed in the sentencing process. For the offender not to reoffend specific deterrence need to be embedded to determine the certainty of the crime. So the offender will not commit the same crime twice. Overall doing the sentencing process the judge have the right to use this offender specific deterrence to promote general deterrence to the public. This will allow other to fear the consequences and possibly punishment if they commit this specific crime.

Sentencing Guidelines are a set of rules used by judges in the criminal justice system in the United States. The sentencing guidelines were first established in Massachusetts in 1994. When the sentencing guidelines were established, its main goal was to "promote truth in sentencing by developing a set of guidelines that was appropriate in consideration to the crime the individual had committed." (Massachusetts Sentencing Guidelines, February 1998, the Honorable Robert A. Mulligan, Chairman). There are ten steps that are included in the sentencing guidelines.

The role of the government is to keep everyone and everything in line. The government should have a sentencing reform because with the system we have now it 's just making things worse. Some people are being placed in jail because of their color when there are real criminals that are set free when they really did do something wrong like murdering someone. The government should have a sentencing reform because the system now is just making things worse. To begin with, The government should have a sentencing reform because the system now is just making things worse.

There is clear evidence of social control, and specifically who it targets. Revelation of this evidence could be crucial to this field as the disparities may prompt research into methods by which to reduce this kind of discrimination and targeting in the judicial system. The criminal justice system in the United States requires impartial magistrates to uphold the standards of the constitution and state statutes, and if judges continue to target certain groups for increased punishment, then trust in the system will surely diminish. In addition, discretion clearly influenced sentencing patterns ; therefore, one can logically infer that the criminal justice system is not one large entity, but a confederation of independent institutions that promote their own goals.

However, the system is not perfect, sometimes we lock up the wrong person or we sentence individuals to harshly. For example, sentence disparity exists in the United States. Sentence disparity is when an individual sentence is unfair and unequal to their crime. A Judges perception of the laws, for instance proves one reason why sentence disparity exists. For example, one judge may view substance abuse as a regular and give them two years’ probation, but another judge could view substance abuse as a habit that does not go away, so he gives a more extreme sentence of two years in prison.

The social issue I have chosen to focus on is the problem of violent crime and the inequalities and disparities in sentencing. This issue is rooted in systemic racial inequalities, which can result in harsher sentences for individuals from marginalized communities who are convicted of violent crimes such as murder. There is a growing body of research that highlights the need for reform within the criminal justice system to address these disparities and ensure that all individuals are treated fairly and justly. The history of racial disparity in the criminal justice system in the U.S. has been longstanding.

If found guilty the sentencing phase is addressed. One of the main functions of criminal sanctions is to offer offenders rehabilitation, retribution, deterrence, and incapacitation, there have been discussions that regard the possibility of differential treatment of groups and the overrepresentation of males and Blacks within the criminal justice system (McNamara, & Burns, 2009). It has been suggested in early research that sentencing and the severity of sentencing for minorities showed signs of discrimination, with more recent research the findings are conflicting. Socioeconomics status influences incarceration for those of the minority

A study conducted by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services undertaking claims of sentencing disparities studies the felony sentencing outcomes particularly in New York courts between the years 1990 and 1992. Astonishingly, the study concluded that approximately one-third of minorities sentenced to prison would have received a shorter sentence with the possibility of a non-incarcerative penalty if they had been treated similarly to their white counterparts. Consequently, other sentencing data is consistent with the results of this study’s findings. On a national scale, black males specifically, who were convicted of drug felonies in state courts 52 percent of the time, while white males typically receive prison sentencing approximately 34 percent of the time. In addition, these figures are not constrained to gender given the similar ratio among black and white women as well.

Crime and Punishment have been the main symbols of the existing racial disparities in the United States for a long time now. In the earlier days, the criminal justice systems mostly entailed executions, prosecutorial and judicial prejudice, and chain-gang style penal practices. The judicial systems saw the minority groups being tried in all white court rooms by all-white juries. The highest number of offenders consisted of individuals from the black communities who were subjected to harsh punishments. Blacks who victimized the whites faced harsh and racially discriminative sentences.

Sentencing Sentencing occurs after a defendant has been convicted of a crime. During the sentencing process, the court issues a punishment that involves a fine, imprisonment, capital punishment, or some other penalty. In some states, juries may be entitled to determine a sentence. However, sentencing in most states and federal courts are issued by a judge. To fully understand the sentencing phase of criminal court proceedings, it is important to examine how sentencing affects the state and federal prison systems, learn the meanings of determinate and indeterminate sentencing, and understand the impact Proposition 57 has had on sentencing in California.

People of all different races and ethnicities are locked behind bars because they have been convicted of committing a crime and they are paying for the consequences. When looking at the racial composition of a prison in the United States, it does not mimic the population. This is because some races and ethnicities are over represented in the correctional system in the U.S. (Walker, Spohn, & DeLone, 2018). According Walker et al. (2018), African-Americans/Blacks make up less than fifteen percent of the U.S. population, while this race has around thirty-seven percent of the population in the correctional system today.

Another issue that was discussed is the inequality of death penalty in practice. There have been serious issues with racial discrimination. For reference in cases with white victims and black defendants convictions occurred twenty two percent of the time while with black victims and white defendants with percentage dropped to a measly three